40% of Millennials pay for print, online news

Associated Press

Updated 7:38 pm, Friday, October 2, 2015

Photo: Karly Domb Sadof, Associated Press

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FILE - In this Aug. 5, 2013, file photo, the Washington Post for Kindle application is displayed for purchase on an Amazon Kindle in New York. A recent poll by survey by Media Insight Project, a collaboration of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, shows that about 40 percent of U.S. adults ages 18-34 pay for at least some of the news they read, whether it's a print newspaper, a digital news app or an email newsletter. (AP Photo/Karly Domb Sadof, File) less

FILE - In this Aug. 5, 2013, file photo, the Washington Post for Kindle application is displayed for purchase on an Amazon Kindle in New York. A recent poll by survey by Media Insight Project, a collaboration ... more

Photo: Karly Domb Sadof, Associated Press

40% of Millennials pay for print, online news

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NEW YORK — In a world flush with free information, some young people are still willing to shell out for news they read.

A recent poll shows that 40 percent of U.S. adults ages 18-34 pay for at least some of the news they read, whether it’s a print newspaper, a digital news app or an e-mail newsletter. Another 13 percent don’t pay themselves but rely on someone else’s subscription, according to the survey by Media Insight Project, a collaboration of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Older Millennials are more likely than younger ones to personally pay for news.

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“Forty percent is a strong number, but that means the majority are not willing to pay,” said Keith Herndon, a visiting professor of journalism at the University of Georgia and a former journalist. “We have to think of ways of making the content compelling enough that someone would be willing to pay for it.”

The proliferation of free news online and new ways for advertisers to reach people has besieged publishers of newspapers and magazines. Newspapers’ print ad revenue, their primary source of cash, has dropped 63 percent, to $16.4 billion, in 2014 from 2003, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Daily paid newspaper circulation reached a peak in 1984, at 63.3 million, according to the Newspaper Association of America. That represented a quarter of the country’s population.

Daily paid circulation has shrunk to 40.4 million, even as the U.S. population has grown by about a third.

There have been attempts to capitalize on the shift online. Digital ad revenues from newspaper websites have more than doubled as print ad revenue collapsed, but still come to only $3.5 billion — just a fraction of print ad revenue last year. And some major news organizations began charging for access to their websites and selling digital-only subscriptions, rather than posting content for free online.

For example, the New York Times and the Washington Post let nonsubscribers view a certain number of articles per month before blocking content. In 2012, the Times’ circulation revenue passed its ad revenue for the first time. But newspapers still get the majority of their revenue from advertising, according to consulting and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

A quarter of those polled pay for some type of digital news, while 29 percent pay for a print paper or magazine. Older Millennials are more likely than younger ones to pay for print news products. Millennials in their 30s are as likely as those in their late teens and early 20s to pay for online news.

“Millennials have shown that they are willing to engage in content that interests them,” Herndon said.